A number of systems have been proposed for classifying and identifying gemstones to provide what may be referred to as an optical fingerprint of the gemstone. The optical fingerprint is accurate and acceptable by the courts for determining whether a gemstone under consideration is the same gemstone which produced a previously recorded fingerprint.
In theft of gemstones, the most common problem is being able to accurately identify a stolen gemstone as being a particular gemstone which was stolen from a certain owner. This problem is of particular concern to insurance companies, in that gems are often insured and it has been difficult to identify the stolen gemstone even if it is recovered. Insurance companies in the past have also been subject to fraudulent claims. Thus, identification of gemstones and the tracking of gemstones remains a problem.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,947,120 discloses a particular arrangement for providing an optical fingerprint of a gemstone where a laser beam is focused on a gemstone and the optical response of the gemstone is recorded on a recording medium, preferably a photographic medium. This arrangement provides a fingerprint of the gemstone which is reproducible and has been held by the courts to be sufficient evidence to prove that the gemstone under consideration having a certain optical response is the same as a previously identified gemstone having essentially the same optical response.
Although this patent discloses a particular method for fingerprinting of gemstones, there remains a very significant problem of being able to actually use this information for identification of gemstones which may be known as missing or stolen.